Reflecting on your web development journey, what's the most misleading or detrimental piece of advice you've ever received? How did it impact your work, and what valuable lessons did you learn from overcoming or debunking that advice?
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Two come to mind for me:
1) You won't get anywhere with PHP.
This is more a stigma in parts of the engineering community rather than direct advice given to me. And it's not true.
Sure, it may not get you very far in certain circles of the engineering ecosystem. But expertise in PHP won't stop you from having a long, well-paying, happy career. Over 18% of respondents to Stack Overflow's 2023 survey said they use PHP (source).
I've spent most of my career focused on PHP-based agencies, though it is far from the only language I know. I've grown to senior, partner, and well into the six-figure salary range.
Don't ever stop learning, and definitely learn more than just PHP. But don't let certain negative speak cause you to doubt yourself.
2) This design pattern must be used.
Again, not direct advice, but a piece of experience I picked up on as I learned more advanced object-oriented programming. I obsessed over design patterns, and I wanted to implement them everywhere as soon as I learned about them. Repositories, strategies, decorators, adapters, you name it.
They all have incredibly use, in appropriate situations. They are not situated for every scenario, or even for every developer or team.
Be excited about new knowledge, and look for opportunities to use it. But be analytical and cautious when applying that knowledge.